Eighteen Below

by Stefan Ahnhem

  Then someone in dark clothing entered from the right, moving quickly. Without warning, he struck the father of two full in the face. The blow was so hard that the dad lost his grip on his daughter, who slid down out of the picture. The boy burst into tears and began to scream for help, distraught. But no one came to his aid; most of the people moved away. The man in dark clothing kept punching the now-unconscious face until the train slowed down once more and the doors opened.

  Only on the way out of the train did the person behind the camera make her presence known. Not by showing her face on camera, but with a laugh. A derisive scoff from a young, female voice, followed by the words “you should have taken the fuckin’ screamer too.” And then the video was over.

  Dunja looked away from the laptop screen and gazed out the bay window. She didn’t know who was worse, the guy who did the punching or the girl filming. The heartless laughter echoing with contempt for everything Dunja herself stood for. Or the fact that the victim was accompanied by children, who must have been traumatized for years after. Or was it that none of the bystanders tried to intervene at all? All those people who must have been shocked, but above all relieved that it wasn’t happening to them. Shit…

  She had lost count of how many videos she’d watched. Shaky, blurry videos where the perpetrator came up unprovoked and decked his victim. Most of the time it was a hard blow to the face, sometimes followed by several more, or — as in this last video — the perpetrator stuck around and didn’t stop until the victim lost consciousness. Thus far, however, she hadn’t found anything reminiscent of the investigation she wasn’t allowed to be working on.

  Yellow and happy, Sannie Lemke had said. She’d even repeated it several times. They all seemed to be happy. But yellow? What had she meant by that? Their clothes?

  Her thoughts turned to Carsten. They almost always did when she got stuck in a line of reasoning and couldn’t work her way forward. Maybe because those times reminded her of a feeling she had carried around throughout her years with him. The feeling of being faced with a problem that had no solution. A labyrinth with no way out.

  Dunja had sometimes wondered whether it meant she missed him after all, but each time she decided it was more that she was happy he was no longer in her life. Nowadays she had trouble understanding how she had tolerated him for so long. His constant bad breath, his antiquated view of women that shone through no matter how he tried to hide it. The fact was, Carsten’s infidelity up in Stockholm had been the least of her problems. Sometimes she even felt grateful — it had given her the very push she needed to leave him once and for all.

  Since then, she had only seen him once. That was right after a job interview that Kim Sleizner had sabotaged before it even had time to begin. Dunja had decided to lick her wounds at Café Diamanten on Gammel Strand, but regretted it as soon as she saw him basking in the sun at the best table on the patio, with a companion who didn’t seem to have anything against subjecting herself to his view of women. He saw her too, but pretended she didn’t exist, and she did the same.

  Yellow and happy…She still didn’t get it. Had she just heard wrong? Did this not have anything to do with happy slapping? The only thing she could think of that was both yellow and happy was a smiley emoji. Wait, hold on…why hadn’t this occurred to her until now?

  With renewed energy, Dunja sat up on the sofa, woke up her laptop, and typed “smiley slapping” into the search bar. A wealth of video suggestions popped up. Most of them were animations of smileys in fights. But further down the list, things got much more interesting. She clicked on one of the videos and, just a few seconds into the classical piece of music, she was convinced she was on the right track.

  34

  After the fight during Friday’s dinner, Sonja closed herself off in her studio on the top floor of the house, while Fabian fell asleep almost straight away. On Saturday morning he knocked at the door with a cup of freshly brewed coffee and a croissant, hoping to smooth things over. But she wasn’t there, and in his fit of rage the cup smashed on the floor and splashed coffee onto several of her paintings.

  Fabian hadn’t seen her since, although he had an idea of where she was. He’d been close to calling her more than once, to demand a divorce or just give her a piece of his mind. But he managed to keep a rein on his fingers as they hovered over the phone, and he tried to convince himself that she was only working, and that was it.

  After a long shower, Fabian attempted to rouse Matilda and Theodor, but neither of them was interested in finding something to do. So he went to the station in order to think about something other than Sonja.

  Tuvesson, Cliff, and Lilja were all there, and together they managed to erase the last of his fear that Alex White could be the perpetrator’s next victim, by narrowing the list down to just two names: Jarl Wreese and Emil Milles. One was an entrepreneur who had built a personal fortune of 175 million kronor through a series of successful investments. The other, a real estate magnate who specialized in commercial properties in prime locations around the world, declared a private portfolio worth nearly 300 million. Wreese was divorced, with no kids, and Milles, who was a few years younger, still lived alone.

  Both men had reported their driver’s licences lost in the past six months. Unfortunately, Molander’s comparative analysis of the old and new photos hadn’t been much help. There had certainly been differences — in hairline, skin tone, and face structure — but they weren’t sufficient to determine whether the person in the image was someone else.

  So the team brought the two men in to ascertain whether they really were who they claimed to be. The interrogations lasted the better part of Saturday afternoon before they could say with certainty that both men were telling the truth and could be allowed to return home.

  In many ways, it was good news to find that they were not dealing with any new victims. At the same time, there was palpable disappointment as they gathered to discuss next steps. The sense of being back at square one drained them of all energy, and none of them managed to come up with any new ideas.

  Not even Lilja’s meeting with Ka-Ching had led anywhere; it had only confirmed what they already suspected: that the only communication between the perpetrator and the company had been by way of email, text, and in rare cases, phone. He had never been physically present at the office, and had used evasive tactics to make his colleagues believe that he was sick, working from home, or travelling.

  When he got home, Fabian found Matilda watching TV alone in the living room. He suggested they play a game, maybe cook dinner together, but she didn’t feel like doing anything; she barely even responded to his suggestions. Later, when she carried her dinner plate up to her room, Fabian gave up and, for once, did exactly what he felt like doing.

  He uncorked one of the bottles he never remembered the name of, the ones Sonja always wanted to save for a special occasion. Then he parked himself on the sofa and let the stereo system show what it was made of. He played everything he loved but never had time to listen to anymore. Death Cab for Cutie’s Transatlanticism, and I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning by Bright Eyes, both fantastic albums, as well as The Shins’ Chutes Too Narrow, which he had bought two copies of so he could keep one in the car. Somewhere in the middle of Modest Mouse’s Good News for People Who Love Bad News, he fell asleep on the couch without a thought of Sonja.

  Sunday was worse, though; it felt like a slog through the desert, with Monday morning a distant oasis he would never reach. Sonja was ever-present, always getting entangled in his thoughts. When it wasn’t her, it was the emptiness she left behind that bothered him. The only way to silence her, aside from alcohol and music, was to work. The problem was, he was hard up for ideas, like the rest of the team.

  Fabian called Molander to convince him to check again for a strand of hair, a fingerprint, or anything else that could tie a perpetrator to the car or Brise’s flat. But Molander hadn’t picked up. Beginning to
feel desperate, Fabian called Hugo Elvin — the first time he’d done so in his nearly two years in Helsingborg. Elvin had been behind the big breakthrough in the case, along with Cliff, and Fabian hoped he might be able to see something besides dead ends and ice-cold leads that led nowhere. But there, too, all he got was Elvin’s voicemail.

  “Elvin here. I can’t talk now, but you can. Go ahead.”

  That afternoon, in one last, frantic attempt, Fabian decided to head out to Mariastaden to knock on Rickard Jansson’s door in person. He’d called earlier, during breakfast, and asked the banker to check for other big clients who had recently switched branches. Jansson had promised to get back to him once he’d talked to his colleagues. But it wasn’t clear when that might be. If there was anything Fabian couldn’t deal with right now, it was waiting for a phone call.

  It took Fabian over twenty minutes to find his way through Jansson’s labyrinthine neighbourhood to the right address. The houses and yards were nearly identical, and Fabian imagined long-time residents walking through the wrong door now and then.

  Jansson was standing by a large gas grill that took up a significant portion of the backyard. The too-tight button-up and tie had been replaced by a loose T-shirt, cap, and shorts that left his knees and a few centimetres of shins bare before the tube socks took over. He held a beer in one hand, and in the other a pair of tongs that he brandished with the same gravity as one might a conductor’s baton. A man in a similar outfit stood next to him, looking on, also with a beer in hand.

  “Hi there,” Fabian said, waving from across the hedge that came up to his knees.

  Jansson’s conducting of the hotdogs was interrupted, and he turned to Fabian with a look of confusion.

  “Fabian Risk. We spoke earlier today,” Fabian went on, stepping over the hedge to shake hands.

  “Didn’t I say I would get back to you?”

  “I just wanted to check how it was going, whether you’d had time to talk to any of your colleagues.”

  “I don’t know what calendar you’re using, but mine says it’s Sunday, and on Sundays we’re closed at Handelsbanken. So, no, I haven’t.”

  “I just thought maybe you’d called around a little anyway.”

  “As you can see, I’m busy with other things.” He moved the hotdogs around with the tongs, as if this were a science that required advanced study. “But I promise to see what I can do this week.”

  “What’s this about?” the other man asked, taking a sip of his beer.

  “Oh, you know, that Peter Brise guy who drove into Norra Hamnen. He’d just switched to our office, and now the police want to know if there are any other clients who’ve done the same thing.”

  “Yeah, I actually lost one on Friday.”

  “What? You did?”

  The man, who was apparently a colleague of Rickard Jansson’s, nodded.

  “Who was it?” Fabian asked, with the feeling that he might finally be on the trail of something.

  “Hans Christian Svensson. Or Chris Dawn, as he calls himself.”

  35

  Ib Sveistrup loved Sundays. By then, his body had settled into the weekend — which he usually started celebrating surreptitiously on Friday afternoons. Saturdays were often spent shopping or doing the chores Dorte had assigned him. Sundays, though, were a sea of freedom, and Ib always made the most of them. Whether he sat in their new glass veranda and read, or took a nap in the backyard, it didn’t matter. He did exactly what he felt like doing.

  But not this Sunday.

  Today Ib hadn’t been able to read or rest. He hadn’t even been able to get all the way through The Bridges of Madison County on their brand-new projector without thinking about work. So he clipped the hedge, which kept growing off-kilter despite his feeding it the proper fertilizer, and washed the car, which wasn’t really dirty at all. Anything to distract himself from the turbulent — to put it mildly — incidents of the past few days.

  First there had been that bloody woman who’d taken off with Dunja and Magnus’s service weapons. Fortunately, that hadn’t resulted in too many headlines. Then there was the ghastly murder of the homeless man. Dunja and Magnus again.

  And if that weren’t enough, this morning Dunja had called him at home to report some videos she found online; she claimed they showed perpetrators involved in something called “happy slapping.” Ib was mystified. Why couldn’t criminals today act normal?

  Although he knew it had nothing to do with her, Ib couldn’t shake the thought that this was somehow all Dunja’s doing. That one way or another, she attracted all these strange events, and not the other way around. Of course, he knew that wasn’t true. Dunja was just trying to do her job, even if “homicide investigator” wasn’t part of her current job description.

  This was exactly what Ib had been worried about when he hired her. Not only was she overqualified for routine patrol assignment, she was also notorious for marching to the beat of her own drum and ignoring direct orders. But Dunja had been one of the best homicide detectives on the force, and Ib couldn’t just stand by as that pig Sleizner blocked her from every open position in the region.

  And now, to his own surprise, Ib had allowed her to take over the investigation. To be sure, it was the correct decision; there could be no doubt about that. Dunja was the only one who had a chance of bringing it to a close. His decision wasn’t the problem. The problem was how she would go about it. What messes would she leave in her wake? And worse, what headlines would she would create?

  With all this rushing through his mind, Ib had ripped the phone jack from the wall after they were done talking. He’d already hit the wall once, and now he promised himself to take all future warning signs very seriously.

  Ib felt a little better now. Monotonously running the sponge over the car’s hood brought just the kind of hypnotic weariness he’d hoped for, and he was sure he would soon be able to take that much-needed nap on the couch to the sounds of Erik Satie. His problems could wait until tomorrow.

  Ussing and Jensen would be furious, of course. They would storm into his office, faces bright red. But it was nothing he couldn’t handle. Dunja was obviously better suited for the case, and the more he thought about it, the more he felt confident about the decision.

  Twenty minutes later, the sound of a car door caused him to turn around. He discovered a silent hybrid car at the bottom of the driveway.

  “So this is where you hang your hat,” Kim Sleizner said, with that smile he so often wore at press conferences. “I tried to reach you on the phone earlier. I just happened to be in the neighbourhood.”

  In the neighbourhood? Sure, amigo, Ib thought, deciding not to extend his hand. “No one ever just ‘happens to be’ in this neighbourhood. Unless you’re on your way to the golf course. But I don’t see any clubs or plaid pants. So what do you want?”

  Sleizner looked around. “Pretty place, this. And so quiet. Must be nice.”

  “Yeah, I’m not complaining.”

  “So I see. Considering everything that’s going on, I’m surprised you have time to wash your car and ignore the phone when someone’s calling you.”

  “At least I’m not in the back seat of my car on the corner of Lille Istedgade.” Ib almost brought his hand to his mouth, but he lowered it again. After all, it was too late to stop the words that had just popped out. Two years previously, Sleizner had been the one who’d ignored his ringing phone. A few days later it was revealed that he had been busy in the back seat with Jenny Nielsen.

  A minor indiscretion that had caused the deaths of a young woman working at a gas station in Lellinge and a policeman. In a just world, this would have led to Sleizner’s resignation and possibly even legal action against him. But none of that had happened. Now that he thought about it, Ib regretted his words less and less.

  “Touché!” Sleizner chuckled, and threw up his hands as if to show that he wa
sn’t offended in the least; he’d long since put all that behind him. “Anyway, we’re not here to spar, are we? We have a country to keep in order.”

  “I’ll ask you again,” said Ib. “What do you want?”

  “I’d like to have a little talk about one of your employees.”

  “Let me guess: Dunja Hougaard?”

  “There you go.” Sleizner showed off another of his famous smiles. “I knew we would understand each other.”

  “Dunja is one of the best officers on my team.”

  “Is that what you think? Interesting. Yet here you are, so stressed out that you have to unplug the phone so you can relax. And don’t get me wrong; I don’t blame you in the least. You’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg.”

  Sleizner was probably right, but Ib wasn’t about to let him know it. He was more convinced than ever that this was Dunja’s investigation.

  “Ib, listen to me.” Sleizner took a step toward him. “I’ve worked with her before, and I know exactly how she functions. Believe me. Give her your little finger, and before you know it you’ve lost both your arm and your balls.”

  “That’s not quite my impression of her.”

  “Fair enough, but how long have you had her on board? Six months? I worked with her for several years. I was blinded by her go-getter attitude, too. I trusted her to lead one of our country’s most complicated investigations. I’m sure you remember the murders of Karen and Aksel Neuman in Tibberup.”

  Ib nodded. He had followed the investigation from afar, and remembered the brutal images from the crime scene as if it had been yesterday. Even then, he had been impressed with how quickly Dunja had been able to identify a suspect.

  “Six months later, she thanked me by forging my signature and stabbing me in the back. Yes, I admit it was wrong not to take that call in the car. But to go to the media after all I had done for her?” Sleizner snorted and turned his palms skyward. “She should be glad she was only fired. I could have taken it much further if I’d been so inclined.” He moved toward the car and wiped away a tiny spot with the sleeve of his coat. “Listen, it’s not that I don’t understand why you hired her. I do. I probably would have done the same thing if I didn’t already know her better. She’s good looking, and she plays the whole ‘evil patriarchy did such a number on me’ game better than Paprika fucking Steen. She goes around like she’s on the ‘good side’ and all she wants is to discover the truth and arrest the guilty. But it’s all a charade, an act to get what she really wants. And do you know what that is? Do you want to know what really drives Dunja Hougaard forward?” Sleizner stood directly in front of Ib and looked him in the eye. “She wants your position.” He poked his finger into Ib’s chest. “That’s right. Your chair, just a little nicer and more expensive than all the other fucking chairs in the whole station. And once she’s taken that from you, you’ll be left standing here waxing your car or whatever the hell you do on the weekend, wondering what the hell happened.” Sleizner stopped, as if waiting for a reaction. But Ib didn’t want to give him the pleasure, and besides, he didn’t actually know how to react.